


Stories of the Second Self: Body of Evidence

by John_Steiner



Series: Alter Idem [136]
Category: National Guard - Fandom, Trolljegeren | TrollHunter (2010), Urban Fantasy - Fandom, social justice - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:20:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22688371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Steiner/pseuds/John_Steiner
Summary: Weeks after his first encounter with the creature in Lindner Park tied to the attack on Michael, Jerrod Connor continues the hunt for clues online and on the nighttime streets. Venturing back into the park, Jerrod plans to lure the beast out to a phone booth equipped with a cell charger and UVC lights in order to capture video of the brute being employed in anti-werewolf hate crimes.
Series: Alter Idem [136]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618813





	Stories of the Second Self: Body of Evidence

Several weeks after that encounter in Lindner Park with the creature, Jerrod continued to prowl around the area in the nights after his last day of work for the week. His online surfing increasingly led him to believe that the often thrown around name troll was applicable. Its skin had hardened when exposed to UV light, lived in relative isolation, and appeared to target the vulnerable, or those straying from familiar streets.

"Okay," Jerrod addressed the streets around Lindner Park, poorly lit from distant street lights that still worked. "If I were a troll how would I be lured out of hiding?"

Unlike before, Jerrod ventured out tonight in human form, but he still wore the BodyGuard gloves and carried his cell phone as part of a plan. Jerrod had picked out a collection of nearby phone booths, which had made a comeback in Alter Idem as cell charging stations with UVC lights for nighttime safe spaces against vampires. All he needed to do was to get this troll to chase him to one and then record it on his cell phone with better lighting.

Online postings included claims of a troll's treasure or some singular prized possession, which someone should be able to acquire if they but found the troll's lair. Jerrod was less interested in whatever artifacts might be there than the idea that a troll might angrily pursue whoever swiped one.

"I've ventured into camps of cannibal giants, took on street packs in their own turf, and charged into the strongholds of nature magic cultists," Jerrod said, as he walked closer to Lindner Park. "This should be a snap by comparison."

Jerrod never did establish from his research how good a troll's sense of smell was, as the myths and modern stories never touched on it, but one thing he knew was that he was able to smell the troll before it could hear or smell him during their last encounter.

Treading into the park itself proved easier with snow mostly melted away. It also reduced the amount of noise Jerrod's footsteps made. Reaching the wooded part of the park, Jerrod was able to survey further into the distance than in warmer months, because the trees weren't yet sprouting leaves. He purposely chose to enter in the evening to avoid surprise ambushes and, he hoped, catch the troll leaving its lair and trace down where that was.

Imagining his National Guard captain talking, Jerrod followed Captain Gonzales' advice about maximizing daylight visibility by scouting so that the most sunlight cast down the direction one looked. From that, Jerrod walked along the west side of the woods while searching eastward for signs of the troll's activity. Half an hour before sundown Jerrod saw what he expected to find.

The clearing only qualified as one for all the damage done to the trees. Older trees were now shattered trunks stabbing out of the ground like severe bone breaks, and younger saplings had been violently torn out of the ground, leaving scars in the dirt where the root systems had clumped soil together. In the middle of it all was gnarly tangle of roots that appeared molded into a cavernous opening to the underworld.

Mythologically, trolls were said to be tuned to nature and draw powers from it, though no one online mentioned having seen signs of that. Aware that the troll itself wasn't what killed Jerrod's little brother, Michael, he figured someone from Silverton could've used magic to grow a shelter for the troll to live in. What worried Jerrod was how extensive and complex that habitat might reach beneath the Earth.

Despite the risk of nightfall descending, Jerrod still didn't change into his therianthropic wolf form, and instead hunkered down on his heels and draped his arms over his knees to wait for the troll to emerge. "C'mon, you smelly fucker. Just still your head out, so I know this day isn't wasted."

Eventually, minutes after the last rays of daylight faded, Jerrod was rewarded with a grumbling gurgle coming from the mouthy knot of roots. The gorilla-like troll with boar features at last emerged from its hideout.

At first, it merely stuck out a hand, likely fearing sunlight, and then exited in full. The distinctive tusks and set of six short horns on its sloped forehead were as Jerrod remembered them last. He recalled that the thing stood around nine feet tall when fully erect There was no reference of size near the troll now to make Jerrod reconsider that an exaggeration of his memory.

The troll stopped to sniff at the air, causing Jerrod to grow concerned. He didn't know if the troll was faster than normal people. Given that the troll still had gorilla-like hands and feet, climbing a tree for safety was out of the question. With that, Jerrod slowly shifted in his sitting posture to get up and move without much noise.

All the while, Jerrod kept a steady gaze on the troll. It wander off to do whatever regular troll things it did when not roused into attacking Norwood residents. Jerrod gave it a good half hour before daring to close in on the lair.

The stink of shit and body odor grew, as Jerrod neared the lair. Strangely, the strongest odor of fecal matter came from inside. Jerrod figured that wasn't the gorilla part of the trolling making it accept that, but he needed to poke around in there.

Now committed, Jerrod ventured into the lair opening with his left hand BodyGuard flashlight on. The ground descended but in a rough spiral, which Jerrod tried to mentally track. It was past two full turns of the earthy cavern before Jerrod came across traces of debris. At first, he found bones, which from the smell and shape led Jerrod to assume they were animals, mostly dogs and cats.

Then, Jerrod spotted a damaged hub cap. "Well shit, if that's considered troll treasure no wonder no one's found anything valuable."

Further along into the third turn stray objects grew in abundance with the troll shit smell. By the time Jerrod got to the very end, however, all he saw were piles and piles of troll turds. Those further back appeared to degrade more into a rank compost and eventually into foul mud. Something down here was working like an all-natural sewer so that a troll could safely shit where it ate.

"Okay, that's enough of that," Jerrod muttered with his nose buried into the rolled up sleeve of his shirt.

Jerrod ventured back up a ways before picking up the shiniest of random belongings that the troll had appropriated. It has a black smear, which Jerrod's nose told him was blood. He figured that would suffice, as the troll must've wanted it badly enough to kill over it.

Returning to the mouth of the lair, Jerrod realized some of the stink had soaked into his clothes despite having never made physical contact with the offal. "Yeah, gonna have to bleach the hell out of this or burn it all."

Jerrod had put on old clothes for this anyway, and so didn't think it much of a loss, though the BodyGuards would doubtless need a good scrubbing. However, he had what he needed to get the troll's attention.

Drawing heavily on the tracking skills that Captain Gonzales had taught all werewolf Wild Strikers of the 37th, Jerrod followed after where the troll had departed. By around midnight he traced it down to one of the poorly maintained streets in the 'Wood near a dumpster, and then considered where his best phone booth options awaited from that point.

Assured he could make the escape route out in his head, Jerrod then yelled out at the troll. "Got your shit here, prick! Ya want it back? You gotta take it from me!"

The troll reared up at the first syllable, and wheeled around on its feet and the middle knuckles of its hands. Jerrod waved the shiny scrap over his head eagerly. "Yeah, that's right, fucker! Got'chr shit right here!"

The brutish thing slammed both fists onto the asphalt next to the dumpster it had been rummaging through, and screamed with rage at Jerrod's audacity.

"I'm takin' it, asshole," Jerrod shot back, waving the trash again. "Bye, bye it goes!"

Not waiting to see the troll bound off toward him, Jerrod broke into a run. Even in human form, Jerrod was a bit faster than normal people, and could hurdle over anything his height without trouble. He frequently dove down alleys and hopped fences with ease, though the troll simply bowled through the chain-link obstructions and slid into turns from those same alleys onto the street.

Jerrod sighted one of the phone booths ahead and kicked it up into a full sprint despite having run over a mile already. He didn't even look back to see if the troll was still hot on his heels.

Rather, Jerrod threw himself into the phone booth and slammed on the switch for UVC light strips above all four wall exteriors. Next, Jerrod pulled out his phone and plugged it into the booth. He'd charged his phone fully before leaving his apartment.

Jerrod's rationale was that the video transmission onto the net would be more secure through a hardline than wirelessly. Post Alter Idem, the global cell network wasn't yet restored, and even local or state networks were still spotty.

"Okay, just so people know I'm not lying," Jerrod said aloud for the phone recording, "I've been trailing this thing all night, and I'm tellin' ya they're real. Hardly anyone knows because they don't come out in the day, and tend to stick to places away from people until nightfall."

Standing under the booth with the door still open, Jerrod saw the thing lurking on the street as far from streetlights as possible. Because of Jerrod's own night vision, he could make out its face, and remarked on the troll's apparent disposition. "I can see it waiting in the shadows. Fucker's big as they say, around nine feet when standing. You can tell where it's hunched down next to a car. He's brooding over the fact I stole shit out of his little den."

Jerrod decided to antagonize the troll again, by flaunting the useless shiny scrap metal he'd taken. "Here it is, fuckweed! You want it?"

That got the troll moving, and it hurled itself to within tens of yards of the phone booth. Jerrod wasn't about to push his luck that far, and so started transforming while still under the protection of the UVC lighting.

Kicking his shoes off, Jerrod also unzipped the second fly over the seat of his jeans to let his growing tail out. He tightened up the belt, as his waist and pelvis narrowed, and then loosened up his shirt to accommodate the new proportions.

The troll raged at a slowly changing Jerrod, and then it lunged at the booth to take a swing at him. Jerrod lashed out in turn, unsure if his claws had grown out, and having forgotten that his right hand BodyGuard was armed with a blade.

Growling and snapping his teeth, Jerrod faked the rage he was sure the troll authentically roared out. Though, when its hand passed through the UVC it yanked back sharply. Between rubs with the other hand, the troll revealed that in fact some of the skin did seem dryer and firmer than just a moment ago. It didn't quite resemble actual stone, but Jerrod imagined that prolonged contact might have an effect something like it.

More importantly, Jerrod's phone was positioned to catch it all with the booth's normal illumination and that provided from surrounding houses and street lights. Jerrod stepped to one side to maximize his cell phone camera view, but still growled harshly at the troll now less reluctant to reclaim its prize.

"Yeah, t'hat's rraight," Jerrod's lupine jaw struggled to enunciate, "F'fuck you, you hairy p'fiece of s'hit! I got'chr ass on z'he scrreen!"

Jerrod's taunted had less effect as seconds wore on. The troll's faced appealed more remorseful the longer its theatrical rampage failed to get back the junk it wanted. Reluctantly, it stepped back and eventually turned to leave. At around twenty and again at fifty yards out, the troll would turn to face Jerrod squarely and do that cross of a scream-roar in protest, but Jerrod knew he had prevailed.

That became the first of several videos Jerrod would make to show everyone in Norwood and the greater Cincinnati that trolls were real and used to harass people in Norwood.


End file.
